User Guide

To define the interaction between the user and your bot, you use one or more intents. For a pizza ordering bot, for example, you would create an OrderPizza intent.

To create an intent or replace an existing intent, you must provide the following:

Intent name. For example, OrderPizza .

Sample utterances. For example, "Can I order a pizza, please." and "I want to order a pizza."

Information to be gathered. You specify slot types for the information that your bot will request from the user. You can specify standard slot types, such as a date or a time, or custom slot types such as the size and crust of a pizza.

How the intent will be fulfilled. You can provide a Lambda function or configure the intent to return the intent information to the client application. If you use a Lambda function, when all of the intent information is available, Amazon Lex invokes your Lambda function. If you configure your intent to return the intent information to the client application.

You can specify other optional information in the request, such as:

A confirmation prompt to ask the user to confirm an intent. For example, "Shall I order your pizza?"

A conclusion statement to send to the user after the intent has been fulfilled. For example, "I placed your pizza order."

A follow-up prompt that asks the user for additional activity. For example, asking "Do you want to order a drink with your pizza?"

If you specify an existing intent name to update the intent, Amazon Lex replaces the values in the $LATEST version of the intent with the values in the request. Amazon Lex removes fields that you don't provide in the request. If you don't specify the required fields, Amazon Lex throws an exception. When you update the $LATEST version of an intent, the status field of any bot that uses the $LATEST version of the intent is set to NOT_BUILT .

The name can't match a built-in intent name, or a built-in intent name with "AMAZON." removed. For example, because there is a built-in intent called AMAZON.HelpIntent , you can't create a custom intent called HelpIntent .

Prompts the user to confirm the intent. This question should have a yes or no answer.

Amazon Lex uses this prompt to ensure that the user acknowledges that the intent is ready for fulfillment. For example, with the OrderPizza intent, you might want to confirm that the order is correct before placing it. For other intents, such as intents that simply respond to user questions, you might not need to ask the user for confirmation before providing the information.

Note

You you must provide both the rejectionStatement and the confirmationPrompt , or neither.

Specifies a Lambda function to invoke for each user input. You can invoke this Lambda function to personalize user interaction.

For example, suppose your bot determines that the user is John. Your Lambda function might retrieve John's information from a backend database and prepopulate some of the values. For example, if you find that John is gluten intolerant, you might set the corresponding intent slot, GlutenIntolerant , to true. You might find John's phone number and set the corresponding session attribute.

Shorthand Syntax:

uri=string,messageVersion=string

JSON Syntax:

{"uri":"string","messageVersion":"string"}

--fulfillment-activity (structure)

Required. Describes how the intent is fulfilled. For example, after a user provides all of the information for a pizza order, fulfillmentActivity defines how the bot places an order with a local pizza store.

You might configure Amazon Lex to return all of the intent information to the client application, or direct it to invoke a Lambda function that can process the intent (for example, place an order with a pizzeria).

A unique identifier for the built-in intent to base this intent on. To find the signature for an intent, see Standard Built-in Intents in the Alexa Skills Kit .

--checksum (string)

Identifies a specific revision of the $LATEST version.

When you create a new intent, leave the checksum field blank. If you specify a checksum you get a BadRequestException exception.

When you want to update a intent, set the checksum field to the checksum of the most recent revision of the $LATEST version. If you don't specify the checksum field, or if the checksum does not match the $LATEST version, you get a PreconditionFailedException exception.

--create-version | --no-create-version (boolean)

--cli-input-json (string)
Performs service operation based on the JSON string provided. The JSON string follows the format provided by --generate-cli-skeleton. If other arguments are provided on the command line, the CLI values will override the JSON-provided values.

--generate-cli-skeleton (string)
Prints a JSON skeleton to standard output without sending an API request. If provided with no value or the value input, prints a sample input JSON that can be used as an argument for --cli-input-json. If provided with the value output, it validates the command inputs and returns a sample output JSON for that command.

The type of the slot, either a custom slot type that you defined or one of the built-in slot types.

slotTypeVersion -> (string)

The version of the slot type.

valueElicitationPrompt -> (structure)

The prompt that Amazon Lex uses to elicit the slot value from the user.

messages -> (list)

An array of objects, each of which provides a message string and its type. You can specify the message string in plain text or in Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML).

(structure)

The message object that provides the message text and its type.

contentType -> (string)

The content type of the message string.

content -> (string)

The text of the message.

groupNumber -> (integer)

Identifies the message group that the message belongs to. When a group is assigned to a message, Amazon Lex returns one message from each group in the response.

maxAttempts -> (integer)

The number of times to prompt the user for information.

responseCard -> (string)

A response card. Amazon Lex uses this prompt at runtime, in the PostText API response. It substitutes session attributes and slot values for placeholders in the response card. For more information, see ex-resp-card .

priority -> (integer)

Directs Lex the order in which to elicit this slot value from the user. For example, if the intent has two slots with priorities 1 and 2, AWS Lex first elicits a value for the slot with priority 1.

If multiple slots share the same priority, the order in which Lex elicits values is arbitrary.

sampleUtterances -> (list)

If you know a specific pattern with which users might respond to an Amazon Lex request for a slot value, you can provide those utterances to improve accuracy. This is optional. In most cases, Amazon Lex is capable of understanding user utterances.

(string)

responseCard -> (string)

A set of possible responses for the slot type used by text-based clients. A user chooses an option from the response card, instead of using text to reply.

sampleUtterances -> (list)

An array of sample utterances that are configured for the intent.

(string)

confirmationPrompt -> (structure)

If defined in the intent, Amazon Lex prompts the user to confirm the intent before fulfilling it.

messages -> (list)

An array of objects, each of which provides a message string and its type. You can specify the message string in plain text or in Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML).

(structure)

The message object that provides the message text and its type.

contentType -> (string)

The content type of the message string.

content -> (string)

The text of the message.

groupNumber -> (integer)

Identifies the message group that the message belongs to. When a group is assigned to a message, Amazon Lex returns one message from each group in the response.

maxAttempts -> (integer)

The number of times to prompt the user for information.

responseCard -> (string)

A response card. Amazon Lex uses this prompt at runtime, in the PostText API response. It substitutes session attributes and slot values for placeholders in the response card. For more information, see ex-resp-card .

rejectionStatement -> (structure)

If the user answers "no" to the question defined in confirmationPrompt Amazon Lex responds with this statement to acknowledge that the intent was canceled.

messages -> (list)

A collection of message objects.

(structure)

The message object that provides the message text and its type.

contentType -> (string)

The content type of the message string.

content -> (string)

The text of the message.

groupNumber -> (integer)

Identifies the message group that the message belongs to. When a group is assigned to a message, Amazon Lex returns one message from each group in the response.

responseCard -> (string)

At runtime, if the client is using the PostText API, Amazon Lex includes the response card in the response. It substitutes all of the session attributes and slot values for placeholders in the response card.

followUpPrompt -> (structure)

If defined in the intent, Amazon Lex uses this prompt to solicit additional user activity after the intent is fulfilled.

prompt -> (structure)

Prompts for information from the user.

messages -> (list)

An array of objects, each of which provides a message string and its type. You can specify the message string in plain text or in Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML).

(structure)

The message object that provides the message text and its type.

contentType -> (string)

The content type of the message string.

content -> (string)

The text of the message.

groupNumber -> (integer)

Identifies the message group that the message belongs to. When a group is assigned to a message, Amazon Lex returns one message from each group in the response.

maxAttempts -> (integer)

The number of times to prompt the user for information.

responseCard -> (string)

A response card. Amazon Lex uses this prompt at runtime, in the PostText API response. It substitutes session attributes and slot values for placeholders in the response card. For more information, see ex-resp-card .

rejectionStatement -> (structure)

If the user answers "no" to the question defined in the prompt field, Amazon Lex responds with this statement to acknowledge that the intent was canceled.

messages -> (list)

A collection of message objects.

(structure)

The message object that provides the message text and its type.

contentType -> (string)

The content type of the message string.

content -> (string)

The text of the message.

groupNumber -> (integer)

Identifies the message group that the message belongs to. When a group is assigned to a message, Amazon Lex returns one message from each group in the response.

responseCard -> (string)

At runtime, if the client is using the PostText API, Amazon Lex includes the response card in the response. It substitutes all of the session attributes and slot values for placeholders in the response card.

conclusionStatement -> (structure)

After the Lambda function specified in the``fulfillmentActivity`` intent fulfills the intent, Amazon Lex conveys this statement to the user.

messages -> (list)

A collection of message objects.

(structure)

The message object that provides the message text and its type.

contentType -> (string)

The content type of the message string.

content -> (string)

The text of the message.

groupNumber -> (integer)

Identifies the message group that the message belongs to. When a group is assigned to a message, Amazon Lex returns one message from each group in the response.

responseCard -> (string)

At runtime, if the client is using the PostText API, Amazon Lex includes the response card in the response. It substitutes all of the session attributes and slot values for placeholders in the response card.

dialogCodeHook -> (structure)

If defined in the intent, Amazon Lex invokes this Lambda function for each user input.

uri -> (string)

The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the Lambda function.

messageVersion -> (string)

The version of the request-response that you want Amazon Lex to use to invoke your Lambda function. For more information, see using-lambda .

fulfillmentActivity -> (structure)

If defined in the intent, Amazon Lex invokes this Lambda function to fulfill the intent after the user provides all of the information required by the intent.

type -> (string)

How the intent should be fulfilled, either by running a Lambda function or by returning the slot data to the client application.

codeHook -> (structure)

A description of the Lambda function that is run to fulfill the intent.

uri -> (string)

The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the Lambda function.

messageVersion -> (string)

The version of the request-response that you want Amazon Lex to use to invoke your Lambda function. For more information, see using-lambda .

parentIntentSignature -> (string)

A unique identifier for the built-in intent that this intent is based on.

lastUpdatedDate -> (timestamp)

The date that the intent was updated. When you create a resource, the creation date and last update dates are the same.

createdDate -> (timestamp)

The date that the intent was created.

version -> (string)

The version of the intent. For a new intent, the version is always $LATEST .